Globalization and Collaborative and Social Networking Technologies

Openness is a form of transparency describing ways companies network, share, and encourage external resources and not rely solely on their internal resources. Being open promotes trust from customers. For example, airline companies like Jet Blue and American Airlines always promote their airline fares and deals. While many of Jet Blue’s fare are higher than American Airline, they are open about it and typically promise customer enhanced quality services. In any case, by Jet Blue and American Airlines being honest and open about their services and prices, customers trust and loyalty are greatly enhanced.

Peering refers to a group of people collaborating openly to drive innovative and growth in their choice of interest(s). Currently, in my database course through blackboard, the professor requires student to complete and present a term project and a final project. Professor posted term papers and final projects examples from her previous course and she always requires that we post our individual papers and project on blackboard for everyone’s viewing pleasure. While some Professors may believe this give student the competitive advantage, the Professor believe it will enhance future projects and papers and create innovative ideas.

Sharing refers to ability to access another persons resources and/or innovations. Sharing involves open collaboration of shared intellectual properties. A major issue with sharing information is avoiding copyright infringements and not breaking the copyright law. An example of sharing is the Clinical Skills Online(CSO) project, which was developed by the Educational Technology Unit in London. CSO provides online videos demonstrating core clinical skills common to a variety of medical and health-baded courses in Higher Education. The videos are available for free to anyone to use for educational, personal, and non commercial purposes. Licensed under Creative Commons, a non for profit organization devoted to expanding the amount of creative work available for others to legally build upon and share, CSO is relatively important for those who cannot access such information and education otherwise.

I believe acting globally means bridging the gaps between nations for the purpose of providing economic growth and enabling global interdependence. I have seen such acts when I book a flight or hotel and I call the service centers and the person I am speaking to is located in another country. Companies that are based in the US may have outsourced sectors of their business in other countries. Both counties are benefiting from one other is some way, shape, or form. I believe these four collaborative technologies address some of the global issues and is an excellent initiative towards the global issues but we can build on these technologies and come up with more creative ways to ensure that such global issues can be sustained or even eradicated.

Reference:
[1] Tapscptt, D., & Williams, A. D. (2006). Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. New York: Penguin Group.